In our visit to the treaty grounds, we absorbed a lot of information, which I couldn’t have put into the post without boring people’s pants off. So here is a summary of things we learned, for our own recollection:

  • Maori culture was an oral tradition, in which information was passed between generations through song, stories and art  — gorgeous, very intricate carvings everywhere attest to the skill the Maori developed. Once Europeans arrived, the Maori chief …. realized that there would be more coming and went to visit King George IV in England. While there, he went to Oxford and developed an alphabet based on the English one to develop a written language for the Maori.
  • The war canoe was built using three large trees and could carry 120 warriors. It weighed 6 tons empty and 8 tons when launched, as the wood absorbs water.
  • The hull of the canoe was not smooth, as the Maori figured out that a rough, fish-scaled surface provides less drag on the hull, and thus would speed up the canoe (same principle as golf balls). A war canoe could travel as fast as 25 km/h (almost 16mph).
  • The canoe was adorned with lots of intricate carvings: along the side of it faces upright and leaning, referring to the living and dead. They were all connected, as in Maori culture, the two are inextricably linked.
  • The large tail “fin” on the canoe helped to stabilize it
  • The Maori house was built in the wrong orientation: north/south instead of the traditional east/west to greet the rising sun. It faced the home of Busby, the King’s envoy for New Zealand, however.
  • original-flagThe flag post flew three flags: New Zealand’s current flag, the Union Jack and a flag that came out of the original Maori independence, ratified in 1836. The reason for Maori independence was a frenchman who claimed to have bought land and declared that he would found his own country on it. The British envoy Busby convinced the Maori to declare independence and with it declare all previous land sales null and void. A that time, the Maori were trading widely in the Pacific, and to not run afoul of the British navy, they adopted one of three flags Busby suggested: The English Andrew’s cross, and in the upper right quadrant, four white stars on blue background, separated by another, smaller red cross. The symbolism was that the red lines represent the blood lines, which are very important to Maori, and the blue represented the water and the sky. The fact that there were four referred to the four directions of the wind, as the Maori traded far and wide.
  • Speaking of bloodlines: Another tour guide/interpreter told his group a story about how Maori identify each other: through their heritage. This is very important, and they regarded other culture and people who could not or would not name their heritage as inferior. The Maori also intermarried between tribes often, which led to a decrease of inter-tribal wars.
  • Although the treaty contains three articles, there was a fourth in an addendum about religious freedom in New Zealand. It was not part of the original treaty because the priest raised it too late in the process (as the Maori were about to sign), and nobody wanted to renegotiate the entire treaty because of it.
  • I always wondered how humans came to New Zealand, or any pacific island for that matter, and our guide mentioned that the people lived in harmony with nature and observed it. There were large migrations of birds heading south, so some people might have followed the migrating birds, knowing that they must land somewhere.